PQI launches USB 3.0 portable hard drive

Following up on their Cool Drive U366 announcement late last year, PQI is expanding its line of USB 3.0 compatible devices introducing what they claim to be the world's first 2.5" portable hard drive to support this technology -- though obviously they haven't heard about Seagate's BlackArmor PS-110. Anyway, the drive is called the PQI H566 and theoretically can reach speeds of up to 5Gbps while providing backwards compatibility with USB 2.0.

Real life performance won't be able to get anywhere near that figure, but PQI's H566 should still provide a nice speed boost for those who push around large chunks of data. The drive itself features a sleek metallic silver casing, is available in 320GB, 500GB and 640GB storage capacities and comes with data encryption software Ur Fortress. No word on pricing or availability yet but it shouldn't be long before the PQI H566 starts showing up on various online retailers.